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Cost of Air Power in Syrian Civil War

By May 2016, the counter-ISIS coalition had dropped more than 41,500 bombs, leading the Pentagon to borrow from stockpiles in other regions.

U.S. aircraft that have dropped munitions on ISIS include:

A-10C “Warthog” close-air-support aircraft

AH-64 Apache helicopters

B-1B Lancer bombers

B-52H Stratofortress bombers

F-15C Eagle fighters

F-16C “Viper” fighters

F/A-18E Super Hornet strike fighters

F-22A Raptor strike fighters

MQ-1B Predator drones

MQ-9A Reaper drones

OV-10 Bronco light attack/observation planes

How much does an airstrike cost?

“The cheapest possible strike could cost roughly $50,000,” but that’s just one jet, budgetary expert Todd Harrison, now of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a 2014 interview with Foreign Policy.

Most strikes include a combination of aircraft. Consider, for example, a recent strike on an alleged convoy of ISIS fighters fleeing Fallujah: that series of strikes included 29 different aircraft.

Russian aircraft include:

Tu-160 Blackjack

Tu-22M3

Tu-95 Bear

Su-24M (shot down by Turkey)

Su-25

Su-30SM fighter escorts

Su-34

Su-35

Mi-8 search and rescue helicopter

Mi-17 transport helicopter

Mi-24 attack helicopter

Mi-28NE Night Hunter

KA-52 attack helicopter

And the munitions they’re dropping:

Dumb bombs:OFAB-100 and OFAB-200 anti-personnel fragmentation bombs.

Smart bombs: Kh-25 laser-guided missile and the KAB-500S Glonass satellite-guided bomb, both used far less frequently than other types of munitions.